Economic And Social Commission For Western Asia

ESCWA STATISTICS

Wafa Aboul Hosn, Section Chief,

Economic Statistics,

aboulhosn@un.org

Regional Workshop on the Statistical Business

registers for the Arab Countries 26 - 29 September

2016 Amman, Jordan

حول سجالت األعمال اإلحصائية للبلدان العربيةورشة العمل االقليمية

سبتمبر/أيلول29-26،األردن–عمان

ESCWA’s Perspective on Statistical Business

Registers

سجالت األعمال اإلحصائية منظور االسكوا حول

Increasing Interest

Methodological Work for Developing the SBR

Modernizing and Transformational Agenda

ESCWA Mandate and Follow Challenges

2

Content

3

Key to meeting user demands for more, better and timely compilation

economic statistics.

Progress in coverage, comprehensiveness and quality

Transforming System/Bridge between administrative

sources into data suitable for statistical use.

• source of samples and populations for surveys of businesses

• source of numeric statistics on numbers and types of businesses

• integration framework for integrating different sources of business

data

• standard classification information for businesses

• coherence and consistency of business statistics

• efficiency: with update activity only being required for one central

register.

Opportunities for enhancing quality assurance, and finding ways to

improve responsiveness in the delivery of statistical programs.

Increasing Interest in SBR Development

4

Methodological Work for Developing the SBR

• Eurostat: Business registers: Recommendations manual

• UNECE Guidelines on Statistical Business Registers

• Pacific Business Register Development Guide (SPC and

ABS)

• Compendium of Technical Recommendations and Best

Practices for Preparing Directories of Enterprises and

Establishments (Inter-American Development Bank)

• Guidelines for Building Statistical Business Registers in

Africa (African Development Bank)

• Wiesbaden group –exchange of views and experiences on

SBR(selection of papers available online) ICES-III,

5

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for a

Transformative Agenda

Modernizing statistical production and services

SBR is a unifying tool in modernising the statistical

production process for Integrated (Economic) Statistics

The Generic Statistical Business Process Model

(GSBPM) is a standard but flexible tool for

describing and defining the common set of business

processes that constitute statistical production

Possibility to incorporate GIS in the many information

layers as geo-statistical data,

Modernizing and Transformational Agenda

6

Importance of 2008 SNA and ISIC Rev. 4

SBR provides a harmonized central frame for the System of

National Accounts (SNA). i.e. notions as enterprise/ establishment,

SNA sectoring, and Industrial Classification System

Short-term statistics (STS) and SBR

ESCWA provided yearly training on Industrial Classifications

and 2008 SNA Implementation

SBR and Economic Statistics and National Accounts

7

The Statistical Committee on its Eleventh Session Amman, 4-5 February 2015

recommended to include in the work programme on statistics for the biennium

2016-2017 issues related to business registers *

EGM on National Accounts and Economic Statistics Financial Services and

Statistical Business Registers 25-27 November 2015 Istanbul Turkey

The Arab Conference on a Transformative Agenda for Official Statistics

was held during the period 5-7 April 2016 in Ankara, Turkey

Regional Workshop on the Statistical Business registers for the Arab

Countries 26 - 29 September 2016, Amman, Jordan

*Report of THE STATISTICAL COMMITTEE ON ITS ELEVENTH SESSION AMMAN, 4-5

FEBRUARY 2015

ESCWA Mandate and Follow-up

8

Technical assistance and Twinning (with UNSD)

Cooperation with sister organizations (UNSD, UNIDO, AITRS,

Medstat)

Methodological Work:

Study on Best Practices Paper on SBR and implementation of

Guidelines on SBR: Tunisia Case

Review of Translation of UNECE Guidelines (Draft

Translation by PCBS)

Cover participation of countries members Wiesbaden City group

Forum on SBR by PCBS (With Medstat project)

ESCWA Mandate and Follow-up

9

Regulation/Directive: Business Registration Act / BR regulation

Informal economy

Fiscal Policies: Tax records Corporate Tax, Income Tax, VAT,

Coordination

Definitions and Concepts and Classification

ICT Role

Maintenance and Update

Challenges

10

Regulation/Directive

Regulation on drawing up business registers for statistical purposes

In the questionnaire send for countries on SBR, the question on

existence of law authorizing the statistical office to keep a record of

the work about business units for statistical purposes, 6 out of 7

responded yes and 6 out of 7 that they have a register of economic

units, but the Tunis Law is specific to the register and in practice INS

Tunis developed its SBR and is using it for statistical purposes.

11

Informal economy in the oil-importing countries of

the Middle East and North Africa is large.

In Morocco, for example, the informal economy is

estimated at 44 percent of officially measured GDP. In

most other oil importers, it is estimated at close to

one-third.

Informal economy

12

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Tax Gevenue as percentage of Total Government Revenue2012

Tax Policies

13

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

- I

nd

ivid

ua

l a

nd

co

rp

ora

te

- G

oo

ds a

nd

Se

rv

ice

s

- I

nte

rna

tio

na

l T

ra

de

- O

the

r

- I

nd

ivid

ua

l a

nd

co

rp

ora

te

- G

oo

ds a

nd

Se

rv

ice

s

- I

nte

rna

tio

na

l T

ra

de

- O

the

r

- I

nd

ivid

ua

l a

nd

co

rp

ora

te

- G

oo

ds a

nd

Se

rv

ice

s

- I

nte

rna

tio

na

l T

ra

de

- O

the

r

- I

nd

ivid

ua

l a

nd

co

rp

ora

te

- G

oo

ds a

nd

Se

rv

ice

s

- I

nte

rna

tio

na

l T

ra

de

- O

the

r

- I

nd

ivid

ua

l a

nd

co

rp

ora

te

- G

oo

ds a

nd

Se

rv

ice

s

- I

nte

rna

tio

na

l T

ra

de

- O

the

r

Egypt Jordan Lebanon Oman Tunisia

Categories of Tax Revenues in selected Arab Countries2014

Source: ESCWA Statistical Abstract. From Ministries of finance & National Statistical Offices

14

Social Security Records

Social security statistics On ILO 6 out 22 Arab Countries

have data

Latest 2007 to 2011

Many indicators have no data

15

Coordination

The SBR : Coordination role for producing integrated

statistics

Coordination of the individual surveys and

administrative collections

Cooperation with data providers: At the level of

agencies, Ministries and NSO and private sources to

ensure continuity of supply and linkages

Problems to identify responsibilities

16

Definitions, Concepts and Classification

The SBR is based on information from administrative registers,

The concepts, characteristics, methods of maintenance, etc., of

the SBR need to be based on statistical concepts,

internationally recommended

Statistical units play a prominent role in business statistics.

EU Council Regulation on statistical units (SU-Regulation) states

"only if the member states use common definitions of statistical units

will it be possible to provide integrated statistical information with

the reliability, speed, flexibility and degree of detail required for the

management of the internal market".

Statistical units are therefore:

• the corner stones of business statistics;

• the building blocks of statistical aggregates;

• the links allowing statistics to be harmonised.

17

ICT Role

The processes for construction and maintenance of an SBR

are characterized by:

• Large amounts of data from many different sources.

• Changes over time in administrative source contents.

• Complex procedures for data integration, processing and

production of outputs.

• Changes over time in classifications and output data

requirements.

Maintaining the SBR requires dedicated IT specialists to

ensure that the systems and software needed for extracting

data are properly programmed and optimized

IT infrastructure and programming requirements for the build

phase of an SBR system. Cost and resource requirements

18

Maintenance and Update

An SBR is a regularly updated, structured database of

economic units in a territorial area, maintained by an NSI, and

used for statistical purposes.

Changes in the numbers and structure of the economic units

should be incorporated in the database.

• new economic units being created

• others being closed;

• economic units being merged or

• changing legal form,

• changing location or activity;

• units having higher or lower turnover over time or engaging

more or less employees than in the past period.

So survey frames may change over time

In some countries, like Jordan, the update is the main obstacle for

using the SBR for statistical purposes

19

Expected Outcome of Workshop

Present the UN Guidelines of SBR

Country practices

Case Studies Malaysia, Tunisia

Discuss the challenges and the solutions

Economic And Social Commission For Western Asia

Thank you شكرًا